I'm back at work today. It's no big deal, but I certainly miss sleeping 50% of the day. I'm only halfway through, but I feel pretty well. I'll be glad to have the stitches out next Monday.

Last Monday afternoon, I started getting mild abdominal pain. By 7pm, it was what I would describe as severe. I slept 30 minutes at a time waiting on the urologists' offices to open the next morning (I was convinced it was a kidney stone.) After calling 5-6 urologists who wanted me to wait until Thursday to come in, I finally found one that could see me immediately.

I had several scans (X-ray, ultrasound, CT-Scan) done, and the final diagnosis at 11:30am was Acute Appendicitis. The doctor told me to have Alison drive me right around the corner to the St. Francis emergency room, and check me in for an emergency appendectomy.

After sitting in the "emergency" room waiting room for 5 hours, they finally admitted me for my emergency surgery. I'd like to think that had my appendix ruptured while I was waiting, they would have made room for me. It's Memphis though, so I might have just died in the waiting room.

I had my appendix removed laproscopically on Monday night, and spent the next 26 hours in the hospital before being released Tuesday night. I've been home since then, and am taking painkillers every 6 hours or so to curb the pain. They told me I could take up to 2 pills at once every 6 hours, but I've been able to get by on just 1 pill every 6 hours. I've tried half pills a couple of times, but I always end up hurting again within 3 hours.

This morning I intentionally waited 2 hours past my pill time to gauge how I was doing. It hurt pretty badly to move around, but it would be bearable with aspirin I think. So, when the good stuff wears out, I'm confident that over the counter stuff will do well for me.

The solos are done, and I'm done with my praise team rotation for this month. It's time to go back to being a choir member.

This morning my minister of music asked me to sing in a trio with him and another guy. I like trios/quartets probably the most of all, so it should be really fun. I'll be singing the baritone part for a Bill Gaither trio song. In case you didn't know, that's Bill's part. :-)

We have some friends from our Sunday School class that have a gap between moving out of their old house and into the new one, so they're going to be staying with us for a couple of days (maybe more than a week.) We've got plenty of room upstairs, so it was the least we could do to offer them a place to stay. The only thing I'm concerned about it how our dog Kit will handle it. She tends to bark at night when she knows someone is sleeping up there. We'll see how it goes...

I have two solos coming up at my church. The first one is this Sunday night (Father's day), and it's my favorite of the two. I'm singing "Give Me Jesus" with just me, two guitarists, and our minister of music as a light backup singer. It's very laid back, and I really enjoy it.

The next solo is quite the opposite. It's a big thing with the whole praise orchestra and a full choir backing me. It will be a week from Sunday morning. I enjoy the song, but I really prefer more relaxed, less formal worship...

Wednesday through Friday of this week, I'll be going to training for Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. It will be nice to not have to drive to downtown Memphis the rest of this week. It will be at New Horizons, which is located in a building that was a huge toy store when I was a kid.

Do any of the Memphis people remember "Children's Palace"? I remember it being awesome, but I was pretty young at the time.

I'm really liking my new job... I've been here for almost a month. The three people I work with are nice, and I really feel like the knowledge I'm bringing to the department is valuable and useful. My first real paycheck will come the last day of May, and my healthcare benefits start June 1. We currently have a gap because FedEx benefits cut off the day I was laid off (April 3rd.)

So far we've only incurred $80 in Ruth's "uninsured" medical expenses. Because the gap is under 65 days, we can wait until we're insured again to decide if we want to retroactively insure with COBRA. That would cost $1200, so unless something horrible happens we can just chill until June...

She's a lot more lively in this one...

Everything is great! Born at 8:45am, 8lbs 6oz., 20 inches long, reddish blond hair, blue eyes. :-)

Ruth is breech, and has been for at least a week. Unfortunately, that means a c-section. We have it scheduled for tomorrow morning at 6:00am CST, and then we'll be at the hospital for a few days while Alison recovers. I'll try to get a picture of Ruth posted when I think about it.

I signed up for Facebook recently, and it seems I've been neglecting my LiveJournal. Hmmm...

Things are going well with Alison's pregnancy. Ruth was posterior a few weeks ago, but we have been able to get her to turn to anterior (facing back, contrary to how the word sounds) using some methods suggested by our midwife. Alison had her latest checkup yesterday, and she's right on the optimal weight. We have somewhere between 3-6 weeks left, and we're both quite excited about it.

I'm really thankful that I have a job in this economy. I know others who were not so lucky...

This thing had an insane number of parts...  The whole thing took nearly 3 hours (although I did stop for dinner.)

( Behind the cut... )

It's not much, really... but it was a blizzard by Memphis standards. All of the area schools got a snow day.